Welcome back! I hope you had a restful break and that results days ran smoothly for you and your students.

As we start the 2024-2025 school year, I am excited to share a wealth of resources designed to support your planning and teaching. From free training events to newly published materials, we have everything you need to hit the ground running.

Whether you’re looking to enhance your lessons or need help navigating the upcoming school year, we’re here to support you every step of the way. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you need anything—we're always here to help. I look forward to working together to make this year a success!

Now for some key updates. Click on the link to your sector to read relevant updates for your qualification(s):

   
  Helpful Resources and Inspiration

Art UK Visual Literacy Week

Art UK's visual literacy week 30 September - 6 October 2024 will start an important national conversation about the transformative skill of visual literacy. It will include a variety of activities and events focused on why visual literacy is being recognised as the fourth pillar of education, driven by The Superpower of Looking programme.

Find out more about Art UKs Visual Literacy week

Art History Festival

The Association for Art History’s annual Art History Festival is a free, national event for the public which celebrates and explores the histories of art, design and architecture showing how these subjects help us to better understand the world around us. The programme consists of in-person and online events offered by organisations and individuals from across the UK 16-22 September 2024. 

Find out more about the Art History Festival 16-22 September 

NSEAD The Big Landscape

A new resource that maps the breadth and scope of art, craft and design education, drawing together important research, essential definitions and examples of good practice to support teaching and learning in your centre.

Find out more about The Big Landscape

Teaching Film Series

Into Film, the UK's leading charity for film in education, have launched their Teaching Film series, a collection of bitesize courses focused on short film production. The course has been designed specifically for educators delivering film qualifications to young people aged 14-19.

Visit the Into Film website to enrol

National Portrait Gallery Schools Hub

Free online resources for Art & Design and History through the world’s largest collection of portraits. It includes more than 150 specially produced learning resources and videos, all linked to the National Curriculum, and developed by teachers, artists, historians and education experts.

Check out the Schools Hub resources

Black Histories in the Classroom

Black Histories in the Classroom offers new and exciting ways for your students to engage with Tate’s collection. Devised to increase teacher confidence in discussing race and cultural differences in the classroom, each resource is co-created with teacher experts, and rooted in anti-racist practice. This resource explores heritage and belonging through Zohra Opoku's artwork.

View the free Black Histories in the Classroom resource

The Superpower of Looking

Free teaching resources from Art UK that seeks to transform the visual literacy skills of children, taking the world of art and images as its starting point.

Check out The Superpower of Looking resources

Wicked Active Learning

A cultural and social education programme for London’s stage musical Wicked, with free cross-curricular resources to download and support art and design teaching and learning.

Download free Art and Design resources for Wicked

Bridging the expectation gap: Career pathways for entrants to the film and TV industries

This project looks at assumptions and expectations about the creative industries from education providers, students, and film and TV industry employers. By confirming the existence and extent of these ‘expectation gaps’, it shows steps towards addressing them, which has positive implications for efficiency, productivity and social justice. Through the project, researchers hope to equip young entrants to the industry with the knowledge and skills they need, and to provide them with a clearer view of working conditions, barriers to entry and opportunities for progression.

Read the full research report

Discover Art UK Artworks by Location

Art UK is the online home for every public art collection in the United Kingdom. Explore thousands of venues with art collections by clicking on the map markers to discover incredible art all across the country.

Discover 300,000 UK artworks by location